We've noticed lately some confusion and debate regarding Facebook in discussions here. We will be getting a lot of our news from Peter Jackson's Facebook page and various blogs about the Hobbit production over the next months and years and we don't want this to become an ongoing source of contention, so we want to clarify our position now.

1. This is a very public forum; please help us protect the privacy of others. Things posted on a personal (private) Facebook page or conversations held there should not be posted here without permission, just as comments made via PM or email should not be posted without permission of the author(s).

2. Announcements posted on a public page such as PJ's Facebook page or Sir Ian's blog should be treated in the same way as any online article:

- You may post either a selected quote or make a summary of the entry. Do not cut and paste the whole message in your post. It is bad netiquette to reproduce a message without permission and it deprives the author of the benefit of traffic to his site/page.

- Include a link to the story/page in your message so that people can easily find the rest of the information.

3. Advertising or recruiting for other sites is not allowed on TORn. This is not the place to promote other websites, or to get into debates about whether people should or should not be members of another site. A person's membership on any other site should not make any difference to their participation on this one. This applies to Facebook as well. We encourage anyone and everyone who is interested to visit TORn's Facebook page (or PJ's, or any other they wish) but it is not a requirement for participation here. It is fine to discuss Tolkien-related information made public via Facebook on our boards, but not appropriate to engage in promotion of Facebook itself here on TORn, because TORn's purpose is to discuss Tolkien. If you wish to talk about some aspect of Facebook as a site, the discussion belongs on Off-Topic, not the Hobbit board.

Thanks for your cooperation on this.Silverlode

"Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them. Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else [make something new], may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you." -On Fairy Stories